Making Moves review and trip to Unanimous

On Saturday 12th March, Echo Echo held a public open day for the recruitment of ‘Making Moves’, a brand new Youth Dance Company led by myself, Janie Doherty, and my good friend and colleague, Zoe Ramsey.

We had six excited girls at the workshop and we had a great session with them, accompanied by the fabulous Mark O’Doherty of PORTS playing drums and sampling some 80’s funk. The girls all got to know each other, chatting away and learning new skills and choreography. Here are a few pics from the workshop!

Zoe and I were going to ‘Unanimous’ at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast the next weekend, a performance evening for all the Youth Companies in Northern Ireland to share their work, hosted by DUDance. Turns out all of the girls were up for coming with us! Horah! Off we went on the 212, pack lunches and smart phones in hand…

‘Unanimous’ was very inspiring and we watched what all the other Youth Companies had to offer, before dashing out and back for the 212 bus! It was a Sunday night and these girls had school in the morning! We all agreed we’d like to be performing there next year. We are now very inspired to start a new term of Youth dance classes after Easter – so big thanks to Mags, Louise, Sheena and all the DUDance team for inviting us all!

The new Making Moves term will begin on Saturday 9th April at 2pm-3.30pm and will run for 10 weeks. All new members are welcome to join and no experience is necessary! Just come along to Echo Echo Dance Studios with a willingness to learn with some other like-minded enthusiastic teenagers.

Janie Doherty, Echo Echo Ensemble Artist

 

 

WITHOUT on tour to Cardiff

Echo Echo worked with the award-winning choreographer and director Rosemary Lee during 2012-13 to make a seven-screen video installation called WITHOUT. The work premiered during Derry-Londonderry’s year as City of Culture in 2013 and has since been viewed by nearly 5,000 people over three runs in Derry and at Dublin Dance Festival 2014.

Earlier this week Echo Echo Technical Manager, Barry Davis, hit the road to the British Dance Edition biennial in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff to work on the technical set-up along with our colleagues from Rosemary Lee Projects and Artsadmin.

The acclaimed installation is open to the public on Wednesday 16th March 2016 until 8pm, and to BDE delegates from 12noon to 7pm Thursday 17th March.

British Dance Edition is live streaming WITHOUT on their website on Thursday 17th March at 1.20pm.

Photos by Barry Davis.

WITHOUT credits here.

Feedback from our Lost in Frost schools audiences

We’ve been working with eight local primary schools from around the city over the last two months on the Moving Schools project supported by Derry City and Strabane District Council Good Relations Fund – bringing classes from different schools together to dance and move together in a weekly workshop programme and to both watch and create dance performances.

We’ll post some photos from the schools performances soon but we just had to share some of this wonderful feedback that we have received from the schoolchildren and their teachers who watched the Echo Echo production of Lost in Frost:

“I don’t like dancing I would rank it 0.5 out of 10. But your dancing I would rank 8.7 out of 10.”

“I loved the dancing and the interacting with the audience.”

“It made me feel excited and I had butterflies.”

“I liked the way it so funny because I rarely get to see stuff like that.”

“When I went back to school after the show I felt happy.”

“The children were captivated by the show… One child said on the way out of the theatre ‘that was amazing’. I think that captures what the children thought of this performance.”

Many thanks to all the children and teachers involved, and thanks again to the Good Relations team at Derry City and Strabane District Council.